


Retroactively Tempted

by BuzzCat



Series: Queen's Greatest Hits [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Fluff, M/M, accidentally married AU, the Accidentally Married AU we all need in our lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 09:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19315348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat
Summary: The morning after dining at the Ritz when a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, Crowley wakes up on the floor of his own apartment, hungover like he hasn't been in a very long time and with a ring on his finger.The ring and the hangover are both a surprise.The Accidentally Married AU





	Retroactively Tempted

Crowley woke up on the ground. He did not, as a general practice, enjoy waking up on the ground. As a snake, he’d long made a practice of sleeping curled up in the trees, replacing the tree with an impressively thick mattress when he was a human-shaped occult entity. So on the whole, waking up on the floor was far from ideal circumstances and Crowley was already frowning against his hard cement floor even before he’d opened his eyes.

Crowley groaned as he sat up, holding his head. The room seemed to still be spinning and his mouth tasted dry and cotton-y, a clear indicator that another sixteen to seventy-two hours of sleep were necessary before engaging with the outside world. Humming in displeasure, he rose just far enough to slither his limbs back onto the bed. He kept his eyes firmly shut against the sunshine that was no doubt streaming in from the open curtains, too bright even through his eyelids. The bed felt warm; no doubt he’d only barely fallen out of it before coming to on the floor. He blindly groped a hand for the sheets at the bottom of the bed; if he could just get back to sleep buried in a mountain of blankets—

Crowley’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt when his hand searching for the blanket instead found an ankle. An ankle that was not his ankle, as he was currently sitting on his own ankles.

Crowley leaped out of bed, proceeding to trip over his own feet and land with an almighty crash on the floor, which did nothing to help his hangover. There was a rustle on the bed and before Crowley could muster up the necessary will to open his eyes, he heard a familiar voice,

“Oh goodness gracious,” came the muttered words.

“Azi—” Crowley started to say the name but it sounded like shouting and he found himself whispering instead, “Aziraphale?”

“Oh my head—Crowley?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Crowley groped around to find the top of the bed, which he used to leverage himself up to standing, eyes still firmly shut again the daylight.

Aziraphale said from the bed, his voice rough with sleep and hangover, “Oh my dear, why is it so bright in here?”

“’m working on it,” Crowley muttered, shuffling around the bed toward the window. It took him a couple of times but he managed to find the blind cord and yank the blinds down before he reached out either arm and pulled closed the heavy curtains. Instantly the room was plunged into darkness and Crowley opened his eyes, sighing in relief. One of the perks of being a demon was the spectacular night vision and he turned around to see Aziraphale sitting on the bed, still dressed in his typical fare save for the brogues that Crowley was certain had been left neatly paired by the door. Crowley himself was still in his leather jacket and very tight pants, which he took a moment to switch for a much comfier set of pajamas.

Even that much miracle made Crowley groan and clutch his head before sinking down on the bed.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Aziraphale asked, still blinking in the darkness.

“No, I just…forgot what miracles do when you have a hangover.”

Aziraphale groaned. “Oh we’re going to have to suffer through these, aren’t we.” It had been centuries since they’d gotten well and truly sauced without remembering to clear the alcohol before going to sleep. Trying to get rid of a hangover while hungover was too much to ask of any entity, ethereal or occult.

Crowley reached out and nudged Aziraphale more to one side of the bed as opposed to right smack in the center, making room for Crowley himself to crawl onto what was normally his side of his own bed anyway. “Shush. Go back to sleep.”

“But—”

“Angel, go to sleep.” Crowley reached down and managed to snag the covers this time, pulling the sheets and duvet over the both of them. “We’ll deal with it later.”

Crowley pulled the covers practically over his head. Aziraphale kept them neatly nestled under his chin and within moments, both were back asleep.

 

When Crowley woke for the second time that day, at almost three in the afternoon, he did not wake up on the floor. Which was very nice, but also deeply confusing, as instead of his cheek smashed against cold cement he found his nose pressed against a very warm shoulder. In fact, all of his limbs seemed to be tangled up with other warm limbs. It’d been a fair few centuries since he’d been involved with a proper orgy, so this wasn’t a new situation but rather an unexpected development. Crowley opened his eyes and blinked a few times, trying to acclimate to what he was seeing in the darkness of his bedroom.

Aziraphale.

Huh.

Memories started to creep in and Crowley dimly remembered the angel being here earlier, also being horribly hungover. Aziraphale, thankfully, was still asleep, flat on his back and snoring away. Crowley wanted to be irritated with the noise but couldn’t quite work up the care to be so, not when the source of the noise was also keeping the bed so delightfully warm.

He raised a hand to run fingers through his hair but froze when he caught sight of his hand. There was a ring on his hand. On his ring finger. Where rings go. Where humans put rings when they get married.

“Oh fuck.” And he didn’t just suppose… Crowley lifted his head just enough to see Aziraphale’s hand resting on his belly and sure enough, there was a ring on the angel’s hand as well.

Crowley was still staring between Aziraphale’s hand and his own when Aziraphale woke up, scrunching his face before opening his eyes. Crowley was motionless, watching Aziraphale wake up.

Aziraphale’s arm twitched, then he froze. Crowley watched him take stock and realize that he was not alone in bed. Aziraphale’s eyes flicked wildly in the dark room before he said softly, “Crowley?”

“Right here, angel.”

He thought he felt Aziraphale relax just a bit at his words. Aziraphale’s beringed hand came up and he snapped, “Let there be light.” A cool heavenly glow bathed the room in white light and Aziraphale got his first look at his wedding ring. The angel stared at it, shifting his hand as if to see if there was an angle where the ring disappeared, clipped right through reality and out of existence.

Crowley held up his own hand, “I’ve got one too.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley’s ring before he whipped back to see Crowley’s face and he said almost a little anxiously, “What did we do last night?”

Crowley sighed, sitting up properly and stretching. “At a guess? Get amazingly drunk, get married, and collapse into bed.” A memory popped up. “Which you kicked me out of, by the way. I woke up on the floor this morning!”

“Well I am terribly sorry,” Aziraphale said a little snippy, “but as my first attempt at sleeping I’m afraid you’ll have to grant me a bit of a learning curve.”

“No. You’ve never slept before?”

“Virtue doesn’t rest and all that,” said Aziraphale primly.

“Funny. Evil sleeps on a regular basis.” Crowley found himself fiddling with his ring, twisting it back and forth on his hand. They hadn’t been married in a church, of that much he was sure. He still had feet; there was no way he would have managed to stand on holy ground long enough to get married without burning his feet entirely off. And even if they were married, what did it really matter? They weren’t exactly human and Crowley wasn’t about to let himself be ruled by the laws of a country younger than some of Aziraphale’s socks. So really, being married didn’t matter so much at all.

That’s what he told himself as the train car of his thoughts kept careening down a track without breaks.

This was fine. Everything was fine. This didn’t have to change anything. He’d just convince Aziraphale that it didn’t matter and they’d go back to their Arrangement and whatever suspiciously light feeling was starting to burgeon in his chest could just deflate and go back to not existing in any way he noticed, thank you very much.

“This will be interesting to explain to Gabriel,” Aziraphale mused. Crowley shook his head,

“Doubt he knows. We weren’t married in a church, that’s for sure.”

“I doubt I’d have agreed to be married anywhere else,” Aziraphale frowned. Crowley held up a bare foot.

“Feet aren’t burned. Haven’t stepped on holy ground. We weren’t married in a church.”

Aziraphale looked like he’d very much like to argue the point but couldn’t with the evidence as presented. He sat up, wincing at the last remnants of hangover before turning to Crowley, “Honestly, Crowley. What do you remember?”

Crowley shook his head. “Nothing. We came back here to for a drink, then I woke up on the floor in my own apartment.” Aziraphale fixed him with a suspicious look and Crowley raised his eyebrows in response. “Would I lie about this?”

“I suppose not.” Aziraphale’s nose twitched as he thought. “And I remember even less. We were celebrating, celebrating our Head Offices deciding to leave us be. And…then we were here.” Aziraphale thought for a moment, “I won’t have to explain this to Gabriel after all, I suppose.”

“Makes everything a bit more convenient.”

Just then, Crowley’s phone dinged. He reached out, flicking it open to see the message. It was from an unknown number: “Anathema says to say congratulations. Agnes told her to.”

“Anathema?” Crowley frowned at his phone.

“Wasn’t that the nice woman you hit with your car?”

“She hit my car with her bike. Who does she know that would have this number?”

They looked at each other and said together, “Adam.”

“Of course the Antichrist has my mobile number,” Crowley muttered to himself as he texted back. Aziraphale read over his shoulder.

“’Would Agnes care to elaborate on exactly what the fuck happ—’ Crowley you can’t say that word! He’s eleven!”

“So it’ll be a learning opportunity,” Crowley said as he sent the message. He narrowly resisted the urge to tap his foot, waiting for a response. Aziraphale was scarcely less impatient, although he fidgeted by twiddling his thumbs.

The phone dinged again a few seconds later. “No.” Crowley had some choice words for that damn witch Agnes next time he went Downstairs, that was for sure.

Aziraphale cleared his throat, “Well surely there must be a, a marriage certificate of some sort, if we went about this the human way.” He peeled off from Crowley, heading out the door only to pause and muse, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen your flat before.”

“Of course you have,” Crowley said in the middle of texting Adam and attempting to coerce the boy into giving him this Anathema’s number, really he just had a few questions to discuss with her, there wouldn’t be any shouting or threatening at all.

“Well I haven’t seen this flat before, then,” Aziraphale said, his search for the marriage certificate waylaid by his investigation of Crowley’s flat.

Crowley finished his text quickly with a few confusing emojis—strings of nonrelated emojis as a way to end messages was one of his better ideas—and quickly followed Aziraphale out. With his luck, the angel would find his plants and start saying nice things and then there’d be no getting them in line for weeks afterward.

Mercifully, Aziraphale had only wandered as far as the kitchen, sparsely furnished as it was. There was a stove that was never used, cabinets with dishes left untouched for years. There was an electric kettle, which was used quite frequently, as well as one unblemished white mug directly beside it.

“It’s very…neat,” Aziraphale said with deliberation. Crowley rolled his eyes,

“You can say empty, angel. It’s a kitchen, I don’t eat, never really bothered with it.”

“Not just the kitchen, the apartment. Really Crowley, you could get hurt from looking at this décor for too long, it’s so sharp.”

“Thank you, I do try.”

Personally, Crowley didn’t like it much either, but when his superiors could pop in through any electronic device and everything was electronic these days, it was important to keep the general aesthetic of drudgery and misery.

Personally, Aziraphale suddenly understand much more of why Crowley was constantly lounging around the bookshop.

“Any sign of that marriage certificate?” Crowley asked and Aziraphale shook himself from his thought process.

“None yet, where would you have put it?”

“Who says I had it?” Crowley said, lifting the empty fruitbowl and checking beneath it. When he was drunk, he tended to put things in the damnedest places. Aziraphale, for his part, opened the fridge and groaned at its contents.

“Crowley, please tell me you own this much energy drink just for keeping up appearances.”

“Remember when I slept through the nineteenth century?” Aziraphale nodded. “They hadn’t invented energy drinks yet. And we had the apocalypse coming and I didn’t need to tangle with hibernating and saving the world at the same time. Those three shelves are the reason we aren’t embroiled in an all-out war.”

“Yes but Crowley, there are so many better options for staying awake. I always find a nice meditation—”

“Have you checked your pockets?” Crowley said, turning from checking on top of the fridge. Aziraphale frowned at him,

“What?”

“If we got absolutely smashed and went out and got married, tucking a marriage certificate into one of your pockets sounds like exactly the sort of thing you’d do,” Crowley said. Aziraphale couldn’t disagree and immediately began emptying his pockets onto the grand and largely unused dining table.

All manner of bits and bobs piled onto the table, everything from receipts from the shops that week to a wooden toy Crowley knew he recognized from Mesopotamia.

“Have you really never cleared your pockets before?” he asked incredulously as the detritus continued to pile up. Aziraphale dropped a handful of informational pamphlets from his last time in France on the table,

“It may have been a while,” he said. At last, from the very depths of his inner jacket pocket, Aziraphale fished out a neatly creased piece of paper, folded in fourths. He opened it up and put it on the last square of free table space. “Ah yes here we are. It appears we did go rather native on the whole—” Aziraphale froze as his gaze flicked to the bottom of the paper, where the signatures for the groom and groom had gone. Crowley peered over his shoulder and immediately swore a blue streak to make an angry teenager proud.

“That’s my name. My real name.” There was a burned smudge in the paper where string-thin lines had been made that singed the paper around it.

“And that’s mine,” Aziraphale said, pointing with a slightly shaking hand at a signature that seemed to almost glow in the light of the kitchen.

The two stared at the paper and each had the distinct dropping sensation where their stomachs would have been that this was something a trifle more binding than the average marriage certificate.

“We did it,” Crowley said shock. “We got officially married in Her eyes. And She didn’t kill us at all.”

“I think I’ll make some tea,” Aziraphale said, tearing his eyes from the paper and beelining for the kettle.

“I’ve got a nice Merlot on the bottom shelf,” Crowley said, going directly for the cabinet. Aziraphale turned from where he was filling the kettle,

“Crowley, it’s only three in the afternoon.”

“The human concept and delineation of time is foolish and definitely the work of my lot. Anyway, extenuating circumstances and all that,” he said as he straightened up, bottle in hand. Aziraphale looked reluctantly at the kettle, then dumped it out before miracling up two wine glasses.

“This is exactly what got us into this situation to begin with, you know.” Crowley filled each of their glasses slightly more than was polite.

“No, drinking too much is what got us here. Drinking just enough is how we got far enough to get here.” He brought his glass up and took a gulp before shoving the debris from Aziraphale’s pockets aside and sitting on the table. “Wouldn’t have made it through the fourteenth century without copious amounts of alcohol,” he muttered. Aziraphale sat on the dining chair beside him, the marriage certificate on the table in front of him.

They finished their first and second bottle in silence, each topping up the other’s glass without words. The afternoon wore on in silence, though Crowley occasionally checked his phone to see if the Antichrist had been good enough to provide him with this Anathema’s address and mobile number.

As Crowley got up to retrieve the third bottle of the afternoon, he swaggered back to the table and said aloud,

“You know, I’m not sure this actually changes much of anything.”

Aziraphale swung his head around to look at Crowley. “We, an angel and a demon who have been excommunicated from our respective sides, are married in Her eyes in the most lasting and permanent way possible, and that isn’t going to change anything?”

Crowley frowned and refilled first Aziraphale’s glass and then his own. “I mean I’m sure in the grand cosmic scale this might matter a bit or two in a couple thousand years, once someone figures it out, but for us right here, I’m not sure it matters too much.”

Aziraphale got a strange feeling in his stomach, something very similar to being disappointed and being glad at the same time. It was a sensation he didn’t particularly care for, not nearly as defined as the other feelings he’d grown accustomed to.

“Do tell me how this doesn’t change anything.”

“Well think about it,” Crowley said as he plopped onto the table, one leg hanging off the edge and other folded up against his chest, “when humans get married it just means they’re promising to stay forever together. Not that it lasts these days, mind—say, was divorce one of yours or one of ours?” Crowley cut himself off, turning to Aziraphale. Aziraphale shrugged,

“Could go either way, honestly.”

“Seems like something your lot would’ve done; marriage was doing such a good job of making so many people miserable.” Crowley said, thinking a moment longer before definitively concluding with a nod that went a little deeper than he meant it to, “Yeah, had to be a job by your side.” He went quiet a moment before frowning and furrowing his brow, “What was I saying?”

Aziraphale drained the last drops from his glass and pulled the forgotten bottle from Crowley’s hand, “You were saying about how humans get married to stay together forever.”

“Right. So humans, they get married because they’re going to be together forever. And we’ve already spent forever together.”

“You were asleep for a hundred years. And I didn’t see you for decades in between.”

“Which for humans would be like going away for the weekend. M’point is, they do it to stay together forever. And we’ve already stayed together forever.”

“They also do it with all that ‘for richer for poorer reason’,” Aziraphale threw in. Crowley shrugged and leaned back on one hand, the other still holding his wine.

“We were standing on the wall of Eden before money was invented, so I think it’s safe to say we’ve been together for richer and poorer.”

“In sickness and in health. We don’t get sick, Crowley.” Aziraphale said, though he wasn’t quite sure why he kept trying to throw up roadblocks. Crowley’s head waved side to side as if conceding a point,

“Alright so that doesn’t fit perfect, but we were together when I was asleep for a hundred years.”

“I was with Oscar Wilde,” Aziraphale said, thinking back fondly on his times with the old boy. Crowley waved his hand to wave away the statement,

“And then I was with Freddie Mercury, we were still together, we were just also together with other people.”

Aziraphale had to concede that point. When he thought about it, since he’d met the serpent on the Wall they really had been together off and on, though it hadn’t properly been solidified until the Globe and the miraculous popularity of _Hamlet_. That was when they went from work acquaintances who occasionally had to share a city to actively being involved in the other’s life.

“You know, I wonder if the Arrangement counts as being married this whole time,” Aziraphale said.

“Not properly married, although the Arrangement doesn’t necessarily help your case.” Crowley glared at Aziraphale, “Stop helping me make my point, I wanted to tempt you properly into this marriage since I can’t remember if I tempted you properly the first time around.”

Aziraphale couldn’t stop the little smile on his face at Crowley’s words, though he did bring up his glass to try to hide it. Crowley went back to working his way through the vows,

“Anyway, for better or worse. Considering we saved each other’s lives I think we can safely say we’ve covered that.”

“We inhabited each other’s corporations, in a very literal way to have and to hold.”

“Shut up, I can’t tempt you if you keep making my point for me.” Crowley said, moving their marriage certificate onto the chair beside Aziraphale so he could lay on his side on the table, face to face with the angel. He kept going through the vows, though Aziraphale was slightly distracted by how beautiful Crowley’s eyes looked this close up. “’Til Death do us part. Well if Death pops by we’ll just call up Adam to send him packing, since I’ve apparently got the bugger’s number now.”

“I suppose all that’s left is to love and to cherish,” Aziraphale murmured to himself. Crowley smirked at that,

“As an angel commanded to love all things and a demon who rebelled due to strong feelings about the Earth and its various inhabitants and amusements, I think we’ve got the love and cherish thing down,” he said. Aziraphale frowned,

“I don’t think the humans mean it quite so broadly. They’re supposed to love and cherish each other individually.”

Crowley blinked at him, then said very matter-of-factly, “If you make me say it after six thousand years…”

“Quite agreed. Love and cherish, achieved.”

The two looked at each other then, neither moving just taking each other in.

“I first figured it out, the love and cherish bit. I figured it out back in the church.”

Crowley’s nose crinkled in distaste, “You fell in love with me in a church? Satan, that’s embarrassing.”

“It was when you saved those books for me,” Aziraphale continued, ignoring Crowley’s distaste. “You said it was a little demonic miracle, and then you gave me a lift home.”

Crowley was silent a moment, long enough that Aziraphale was starting to drift in the lovely drunken haze he’d managed to put together, but his words snapped Aziraphale back to the conversation.

“Rome. You tried to tempt me to some oysters,” Crowley said it distantly, lost in the memory. Aziraphale’s smile spread across his entire face,

“Rome? Dear, that’s—”

“Don’t you dare say ‘romantic’ or any other similar sentiment. I’m a very intimidating demon who doesn’t go in for that sappy nonsense.” Crowley fully laid down on the table with a huff, staring up at the ceiling before tilting his head to the side to look at Aziraphale.

“Of course, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said with a grin. Crowley’s hand had fallen off the table, hanging just beside Aziraphale. Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his, admiring how their rings looked together. “Have you finished trying to temp me into marriage? Because if this was a proposal, I’d quite like to accept about now.”

“Yeah I suppose I’m done with it.” Crowley tried to play it off as nonchalant, looking down at their joined hands.

Aziraphale rubbed his thumb over Crowley’s knuckles, and sighed theatrically, “I’m no match for a wily serpent such as yourself; I suppose we’ll just have to stay married.”

Crowley grinned at him,

“Knew I could tempt you into it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Queen's Greatest Hits - 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'
> 
> If this was ever going to be expanded and made into a proper thing, the answer for 'how'd they get married' is that they got insanely wasted, drunk-dialed God to ask about what happens now the Apocalypse has been averted and they're back to living their lives but with considerably less direction, and God's reaction was essentially 'get married, live happily ever after, and call me back at a decent hour of the morning'.


End file.
